Trials of Mana remake vs the original

[marurun]

So, I'm hoping you folks can clue me in as to how well the new Trials of Mana compares to the original. I'm playing the new one and haven't played the original. But I remember old screen shots of SD3 featuring that detailed crab boss, and I just fought it in the Switch Trials remake. It looks a LOT like the SNES original. They did a fantastic job capturing the visual presence of it. Those who have played both, can you enlighten me?

[MrPopo]

It's a pretty damn faithful recreation. While the maps are in 3D they still pretty much always use the same layouts; there's one instance where they added in a between path that wasn't there before and another dungeon has some verticality that wasn't originally there but for the most part it's about as identical as it can be. And the combat was tweaked; aside from the obvious weak/strong/jump and simple hit combos vs the basic swings of the original they changed how special moves work; instead of it being X hits to charge the meter and resetting after every screen this is a meter that builds up more slowly but can be carried over. And they removed most instances of enemies countering them with their own fuck you move. Story-wise it's identical.

[Forlorn Drifter]

A question then- is there any reason to pick the one version over the other, or is it mostly down to preference? I’ve been struggling to decide if I want the Collection of Mana or if I want to get the remakes.

[marurun]

Only Trials is remade. I'm playing it now. It does feel decent. While it's faithful in many ways, I suspect the remake is going to be a hair more accessible.

[MrPopo]

The remake for the most part is them adding a third dimension to the original 2D assets and then making the combat a bit more interesting and with a bit less bullshit (no auto countering your good techs, for example).

[Forlorn Drifter]

Weird, I thought Secret was remade too.

In that case, I might just get both for funsies, I love my Switch and don’t want to put it down.

[MrPopo]

Secret got a 2.5D rerelease on the PS4. The music was also reorchestrated, but otherwise it's the same. I'd say the Collection version of Secret is better.